Thursday, October 2, 2025
Absurdities, conspiracies, homegrown fascists: in Thomas Pynchon’s novel set in 1932, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Shadow Ticket, by Thomas Pynchon, Penguin Press,…
SOURCE: 4columns at 08:00PMThursday, September 11, 2025
Through the works of Kafka, Berger, Sebald, and more, Kate Zambreno’s book reflects on our perceptions of nonhuman animals and
our own animal nature.
Animal Stories, by Kate Zambreno,
T…
SOURCE: 4columns at 08:00PMThursday, June 19, 2025
The profound lightness of being: a moving, amusing first
memoir by Geoff Dyer.
Homework: A Memoir, by Geoff Dyer,
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 276 pages, $29
• • •
“It…
SOURCE: 4columns at 08:00PMThursday, March 20, 2025
Amid the twisted humor of Lynne Tillman’s short stories, an incomparable chronicling of human relations.
Thrilled to Death, by Lynne Tillman,
Soft Skull, 304 pages, $27
• • …
SOURCE: 4columns at 08:00PMThursday, February 20, 2025
You say hello, I say goodbye: Michael Erard’s new study explores the range of meanings of first and final words.
Bye Bye I Love You: The Story of Our First and Last Words, by Michael Erar…
SOURCE: 4columns at 07:00PMThursday, January 30, 2025
Unverifiable unverifiable unverifiable: in Ali Smith’s new novel, two young siblings navigate the powers and failings of language in a dystopian future.
Gliff, by Ali Smith,
Pantheon Boo…
SOURCE: 4columns at 07:00PMThursday, December 5, 2024
In seventy-four poems by Hannah Arendt, a document of the
philosopher’s interior life.
What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt,
translated and edited by Samantha Rose Hill an…
SOURCE: 4columns at 07:00PMThursday, November 14, 2024
Rage inside the machine: in Kevin Killian’s product reviews of books, films, and sundry items, a poetic project to “queer everything.”
Selected Amazon Reviews, by Kevin Killian,
Semi…
SOURCE: 4columns at 07:00PMThursday, October 17, 2024
Simon Critchley examines the relationship between storied mystical traditions and the transformative properties of artistic practice.
Mysticism, by Simon Critchley,
New York Review Books, …
SOURCE: 4columns at 08:00PMThursday, September 12, 2024
Agent provocateur without a cause: Rachel Kushner’s latest novel follows an American secret agent with no loyalties and even fewer judgments.
Creation Lake, by Rachel Kushner, Scribne…
SOURCE: 4columns at 08:00PMThursday, June 13, 2024
An endearing and suitably messy biography of the
pioneering punk vocalist.
Infinite Dreams: The Life of Alan Vega, by Laura Davis-Chanin and Liz Lamere, foreword by Bruce Springsteen,
Bac…
SOURCE: 4columns at 08:00PMThursday, May 9, 2024
Earth to E.T. . . . ? Daniel Oberhaus’s book investigates the history of human efforts to communicate with alien intelligence.
Extraterrestrial Languages, Daniel Oberhaus,
MIT Press, 252…
SOURCE: 4columns at 08:00PMThursday, April 11, 2024
Memories, speak: in a novel by Monika Zgustova, the story of Véra and Vladimir Nabokov’s marriage, and the fallout of an early affair, is triangulated through a prism of perspectives.
A …
SOURCE: 4columns at 08:00PMThursday, March 7, 2024
In Diane Seuss’s sixth collection, a cobbling together
of forms and forbears.
Modern Poetry: Poems, by Diane Seuss, Graywolf Press, 112 pages, $26
• • …
SOURCE: 4columns at 07:00PMThursday, February 1, 2024
Is Anne Carson nice or happy? Right or wrong question?
Wrong Norma, by Anne Carson, New Directions, 191 pages, $17.95
• • •
In May 2017, the New Yorker published a prose…
SOURCE: 4columns at 07:00PMThursday, January 11, 2024
Audrey Schulman’s new novel tells a profound tale of mind control, misogyny, language learning, and interspecies connections at a 1960s marine research facility.
The Dolphin House, by Aud…
SOURCE: 4columns at 07:00PMThursday, December 7, 2023
Aphorisms and aesthetics: a new translation reveals the strange stylings of writer, artist, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau.
Secrets of Beauty, by Jean Cocteau, translated by Juliet Powys,
Eris…
SOURCE: 4columns at 07:00PMThursday, November 2, 2023
In Derrida’s lectures, a generously ambiguous approach to thinking about paradox, power, and borders during a time of global emergency.
Hospitality, Volume I, by Jacques Derrida, translat…
SOURCE: 4columns at 08:00PMThursday, October 5, 2023
A River of Gentrification Runs Through It: Jonathan Lethem’s new fiction chronicles neighborhood tales from the ’60s to the present.
Brooklyn Crime Novel, by Jonathan Lethem, Ecco, 373 …
SOURCE: 4columns at 08:00PMThursday, September 7, 2023
Twenty-six poems by Ben Lerner grapple with the language of poetics at the intersection of contemporary private life and political darkness.
The Lights: Poems, by Ben Lerner, Farrar, Straus…
SOURCE: 4columns at 08:00PMThursday, June 29, 2023
Wherever you go, there you are: in Deborah Levy’s new novel, a disgraced concert pianist drifting around Europe repeatedly
runs into a doppelgänger.
August Blue, by Deborah Levy, Farrar…
SOURCE: 4columns at 08:00PMThursday, May 25, 2023
Scholar Florian Fuchs’s new book argues for short-form writing’s potential to transform a reader’s “lifeworld.”
Civic Storytelling: The Rise of Short Forms and the Agency of Liter…
SOURCE: 4columns at 08:00PMFriday, December 31, 2010
Tacita Dean has been unveiled as the next artist to exhibit in the Tate Modern turbine hall. Her current show and recent films – about decay, beauty and nostalgia – mark her out as one o…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PM 
